We Mexicans are funny with numbers.You wake up on Monday morning, and you´re looking at the week ahead. It has five days of toil and two days of weekend.
But in Mexico, we add on another day. It´s a nameless day, a secret day, only peeking out in Spanish conversation.
In Mexico, when something occurs once a week, it happens "every eight days." And the odd thing is that if something happens every two weeks, it´s not every 16 days as it should be if the week consists of eight days, but it´s every 15 days!
So, if it´s every two weeks, one mystery day recedes, and the other remains. Maybe the mystery days feel antipathy, one for the other, and won´t show up in the same Spanish sentence.
And . . . there´s more.
If you water your flowers, for instance, every other day, that´s every other day, right? In Mexico, you´re watering those flowers "every three days."
I count watering flowers, or whatever, every other day as every two days. But Mexicans don´t see it that way.
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(This website was last updated on July 14, 2008.)
3 comments:
You're right about the 8 & 15 days thing, but the last expression is wrong. At least here in Mexico City I hear "every third day", which I think it means that the first day you water your plants (on Monday, for example) is counted as the first day of that period. The next day (when you don't water your plants) is counted as the second day, and finally, you water your plants on Wednesday which is the "third" day in that period.
It has no logic but it makes sense when you see it that way.
Hace quince dias...
I once tried to reason with my class, a group of 7 or 8 high school aged Morelianos, concerning the 8/15 days thing. They wouldn't have it. The wheels were turning as if they had never considered this. They tried to tell me I was wrong about it. We ended up literally counting the days, one-by-one, on a calendar. They admitted that I was objectively rgiht about this, but I could tell they chalked up my questioning the phrase to gringoness.
This is just one among many examples of the weirdness of the Mexican mind. Actually, in fairness, it likely represents the Spanish-language mind.
I have had Mexicans admit it makes no sense whatsoever. When I first mentioned this to my wife some years ago, she justified it by counting the days from one Sunday to the next. Problem is she counted both Sundays and the six days separating them. That was a week to her: 8 days.
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